Information technology tools and resources at the UW

Adding the UW Privacy Policy and Terms of Use to your Site

Introduction

The University of Washington Office of the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) has created a Privacy Policy and Terms of Use that are required for use on all UW-affiliated websites, with the exception of student websites. If you are developing a new website or maintain a current site, you need to add links to these documents on your site: preferably in your site footer or navigation bar. These documents will supersede any current Privacy Policy or Terms of Use that are currently in place on your site. The CISO requests that you directly link to these pages rather than attempting to incorporate the text into your own site: these documents may change from time-to-time and direct links will mean your site is always up-to-date.

This document will outline a few different ways in which you can incorporate these links into your site.

Adding to Your Site

The following are the two pages which you should link to from every page on your UW-affiliated site:

Method One: HTML/Manual

If you have a fairly simple site or manually update each site file, then you will want to edit the files and add the following code in your site footer. You are free to modify the formatting as you wish.
<a href=”http://www.washington.edu/online/privacy” >Privacy</a> |
<a href=”http://www.washington.edu/online/terms” >Terms</a>

Method Two: Add a UW-branded Footer to your Page

UW Marketing maintains a “Header & Footer Wizard” that helps you add a UW-themed header and footer into your website. It will create the HTML and CSS required to display the Header and Footer, and this tool has been updated to include the Privacy and Terms links. You can see one example of the footer at the bottom of this IT Connect page.

Method Three: Modifying Central Footer File

If your website uses a centralized footer or menu file/template that is used by all of your pages, then you can use the steps outlined above, except you will only need to update that one particular file.

Method Four: Editing a CMS File

If your website uses a Content Management System such as WordPress, Drupal, Moodle, Plone, MediaWiki, or Joomla, there are a few different options to add these links. As each CMS is different, these options may vary depending on what you are using to maintain your site. There are a few different approaches here, so be sure to read through them before deciding upon which one will work best for your purposes.

Option One: Edit the core file that generates your footer to include these links. Note that when you update your site software, this change will probably be overwritten and you will need to manually add it again.

Option Two: Edit the theme file that your site uses to generate the footer. As with option one, if you update your theme, these changes will likely need to be added again.

Option Three: If your site has an area where you can add custom HTML to your footer, simply add the relevant HTML. This should continue to work even after the files are updated, as your CMS is aware of these changes.

Option Four: Many systems allow you to create custom menu items. You could add the Terms and Privacy links to your menu or navigation bar. This should also work after your files are updated, as your CMS is aware of this change.

Option Five: Develop or use a plugin that allows you to add footer code.

Option Six: Figure out your own solution! Your CMS is flexible, so you should be able to design a solution for adding these links if none of the above options appeal to you

Resources

The Office of the Chief Information Security Officer maintains a FAQ regarding the Privacy Statement and Website Terms and Conditions of Use.